In a 5-4 decision announced Monday, the Supreme Court granted Hobby Lobby, a national arts and crafts chain owned by Christians and closed Sundays, the right to refuse employees coverage for certain contraceptives.

The ruling is a first, said Jennifer Bard, a law professor and director of the health law program at Texas Tech and adjunct professor in the psychiatry department.

“No private company had ever been classified as faith-based for the purpose of being exempt from federal employment law,” she said.

Hobby Lobby’s owners claim their religious rights were being violated by the Affordable Care Act mandate to offer a health insurance plan to employees that included coverage for certain contraceptives, like the morning-after pill, they thought were not preventive, but rather a form of abortion.

“The bigger issue is protection for free exercise of religion and who gets that protection,” Bard said. “The big idea here is that a privately held company can have religious beliefs that are protected.”

Hobby Lobby stores employ a collective 16,000 full-time and 12,000 part-time workers, said Emily Hardman, communications director for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Hobby Lobby in the case, in an email. Hardman was unable to specify how many female employees are receiving health insurance through Hobby Lobby.

The Becket Fund is a nonprofit law firm protecting the free expression of all religious traditions, “from Anglicans to Zoroastrians,” according to its website.

Other questions addressed to The Becket Fund regarding how much Hobby Lobby will be saving by not providing the contraceptives in question and whether the company’s pre-ACA insurance plan covered the contraceptives were not answered by press time.

Attorney Mark Ramsey, lead counsel for Hobby Lobby, was quick to clarify during a news conference call the ruling applies only to closely-held corporations and not public companies.

Public opinion

The manager on duty at Lubbock’s Hobby Lobby store could not comment on the ruling and explained he was instructed to direct all media inquiries to the company’s corporate office in Oklahoma City.

Other Lubbockites took to social media to express their opinions.

“From this decision, other types of health care exemptions can or will be sought,” Meghan Jo Lindsey, a Texas Tech student, said on Facebook. “There is a reason this was a 4-5 vote, because no matter which way the justices voted, somebody was going to feel discriminated against. I personally don’t like it. I think it’s discriminatory against employees who are seeking contraception during a time in which jobs are not easy to come by.”

In response to a tweet asking Lubbock Hobby Lobby shoppers if the Supreme Court decision will affect their continued business to the store, Twitter user Heidi Wilson said Hobby Lobby will no longer be her first choice.

“Hobby Lobby generates most of its money from women and should provide free birth control for their employees who are mostly women,” she said, using abbreviations for certain words to stay under the 140-character limit allowed by the social media site.

Cherie McAlpine tweeted, “Of course I’ll keep shopping there!” and, later, that she agreed with the Supreme Court’s ruling because Hobby Lobby is a private company “that has built itself on a set of morals and beliefs and should be allowed to run it.”

Bishop Placido Rodriguez of the Catholic Diocese of Lubbock said in a phone interview the diocese is already exempt from providing coverage for contraceptives to employees, thanks to a June 4 ruling in response to a lawsuit by 450 Catholic Benefit Association members — which includes the Lubbock diocese — in an Oklahoma federal court.

Rodriguez said Catholic bishops of Texas were compiling a statement in support of the Hobby Lobby decision.

“It’s a great day for all of us,” he said.

Politicians react

Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Lubbock, said in a news release, “I am very glad the Supreme Court once again rebuked President Obama’s overreach and decided to protect religious freedom. Today’s decision is a win for my constituents in West Texas and the American people. The federal government should never force hardworking small business owners to violate their religious beliefs in order to comply with the beliefs of bureaucrats in Washington. Of Obamacare’s many failures and problems, this ongoing attack on religious freedom has been one of the most troubling. Today’s decision should serve as a reminder that Obamacare is deeply flawed, unworkable and needs to be immediately repealed.”

According to the release, Neugebauer — who has co-sponsored two bills in Congress clarifying funding for abortion coverage under the ACA and allowing employers to abstain from providing coverage that goes against their moral or religious beliefs — signed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of the Hobby Lobby case, officially known as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

Neugebauer’s Democratic opponent for the U.S. House of Representatives, Neal Marchbanks, was unavailable for comment Monday due to a family emergency.

Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, released this statement: “Today’s disappointing decision to restrict access to birth control puts employers between women and their doctors. We need to trust women to make their own health care decisions — not corporations, the Supreme Court or Greg Abbott.”

Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republican candidate in the gubernatorial race, called the Supreme Court ruling a “major victory for religious freedom” and another blow to the “heavy-handed” Obama administration.

“Once again, the Supreme Court has stricken down an overreaching regulation by the Obama Administration — and once again Obamacare has proven to be an illegal intrusion into the lives of so many Americans across the country,” Abbott said in a statement.

Possible repercussions

What kind of precedence does the Hobby Lobby decision set for other corporations?

“That’s the logical question to ask,” Bard said.

A widely popularized hypothetical example is a company owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses opting out of providing coverage to employees in need of blood transfusions because their religious beliefs do not support the practice. Also in question are vaccines.

Denying those provisions would have been legal in all 50 stages prior to the ACA, and no one engaged in it, Ramsey said.

The question is, “Does government have a compelling interest in forcing someone to provide it?” he said. In the case of blood transfusions, the government may have a more compelling argument than in the case of contraceptives.

Bard said any other situations that may come up as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision will get evaluated on their terms.

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As I have already mentioned, lawyers for Hobby Lobby provided a definition for some medications and devices that the Medical community rejects. If the court won't acknowledge the definition as seen by the Medical community only to acknowledge the definition given by religious people who aren't doctors, what other erroneous definitions will they be willing to accept?

"For profits" use of religion as a tool to discriminate against medications seems like a throw back to past Religious objections by "for profits" to discriminate by race and, currently, sexual orientation. It is definitely a slippery slope.

I plan to buy stock in Michaels at their IPO next month and will then want to know why the Supreme Court is giving them an edge costwise by make a company I own part of furnish insurance that my competitor does not do not have to furnish. Therefore, the Supreme Court is unleveling the playing field. I think you will just begin to see the lawsuits.

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Jonathan Swift "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx

I'm pretty sure that goTPs who have a clue, are already sweating about 2016. Otherwise, the GOTP would not be struggling with the goTP for control of the Republican Party.

I thought about addressing the GOP/TP struggle for the Republican party, but I am afraid that the two have managed to become conjoined at the identity, and any attempts at separating the two will have fatal consequences. On the other hand, I think they are killing themselves/each other politically now.

Real Clear Politics collects polls from various pollsters. Apparently some pollsters are comparing Hillary Clinton against various Republican candidates. The Tea Party "darling" loses by double digits month after month.

Scott Walker must be new for a presidential run. He has too much baggage and is another loser....LOL!

The SCOTUS decision on this case is very narrow. It only applies to contraception. Religious opposition to other medical treatments do not apply--like the Jehovah's Witnesses, etc, etc. etc...

I can't help but think this issue overplayed. When I got married in 1967, we didn't have a lot of money, yet we were able to afford paying for birth control pills. Have they become outrageously expensive?

All of this is much ado about nothing, and just another reason for conservatives to beat their chests in their hate for Obama....

Prior to 2012 the Green family of ultra conservative Oklahoma covered their Hobby Lobby female employees for all types of birth control including the kind they object to today. So this backsliding baptist family is really expressing their ultra conservative religious and political views

So this court case is really an assault on AFFORABLE HEALTH CARE.

Neugebauer and Austin INSIDER abbott have both stated in this article that confirms the assault.

They both waist their time and tax dollars trying to appeal the act but neither have the GUTS to tell the American people what they want in its place and let the American people decide if their healt plan holds water or not. Come randy and greg have some guts to put up or shut up.

So the 5 Supreme Court cronies(do not deserve to be called justices) are just doing what their republican puppet masters want them to do.

Total disregard of Women's health issues.

More taking away the rights of Americans.

REMBER. The Greens paid employee health insurance covered and paid for all forms of birth control for their female employees including the ones they object to now prior to AFFORABLE HEALTH CARE

Here is a post I made earlier which was censored:
I believe a employer should be free to decide what to cover in insurance he pays for whether or not I agree with his reasons for deciding. However I also believe the government should provide contraceptives free to women with small or no incomes and provide them free at the schools with financial incentives for their use to teenage girls. This would make the present silly controversy moot. It would also save taxpayers money, decrease the number of abortions, and increase the chances of many young women having better lives and more success in the world, while harming nothing.
I an reposting this now, as I do not see how it violated anyone' policies.

obvious makes a good point above. This is not really a big deal. Of all the things wrong with Obamacare this has to be one of the least important. It seems that once again the silly Repubs are chasing the red cape and ignoring the matador.

I remember a certain House Democrat(Michigan) named Stupak. He refused to vote for the ACA unless he was promised that there was nothing in it (abortion etc)that made him go against his religion. But of course ,this stuff was added later by HHS. Was Stupak stupid? Dude that was 2010, like so long ago man.

if Hobby Lobby will still allow their male employees to use their insurance for Cialias & Viagra? You bet they will!!
And Benardo, what makes you think that the number of abortions ill go down? I remember the days of back alley's and coat hangers!!!
I still say a woman's choice should be her's, not her employer, the gvt., just her's!!!